How Yoga Can Help Your Mind

What is yoga?

Yoga is a practice that originated in ancient India. It combines physical, mental and spiritual exercises. The aim is to primarily control your own mind and body. But the disciplines can also help you better other aspects of your body and mind.

There are various types of yoga includes the following:

● Kundalini Yoga: Kundalini yoga combines meditation, chanting, breathing and exercising. It is a great form of yoga for people who wish to get a spiritual experience while also getting physical exercise.

● Iyengar Yoga: Iyengar yoga focuses on controlling your breathing and your movement. In this type of yoga, you usually hold a particular pose for a long time and focus on perfecting it. It can be very relaxing and a great choice for beginners.

● Hatha Yoga: Hatha Yoga requires you to move your body slowly into a pose while inhaling and exhaling. It requires you to challenge your physical strength and flexibility but also challenges your mental capabilities.

● Ashtanga Yoga: Ashtanga Yoga interlinks your bodily movements to your breathing movements. Hence, it is a great way to control your mind and your body - at once.

Other forms of yoga also include Vinyasa Yoga, Yin Yoga, Anusara Yoga, Jivamukti Yoga and Restorative Yoga, among others.

Mental Benefits of Yoga

Here is how yoga can benefit your mind.

1. Improves your mood

Yoga practices involve physical exercises like stretches and bends. These exercises help reduce stress hormones production by your endocrine glands. It also stimulates the production of chemicals like dopamine and GABA that are responsible for uplifting your mood.

Yoga also helps in the production of a hormone called serotonin. Serotonin is responsible for happiness, hence you end up in a bright mood.

2. Helps your mind relax

Pranayama is a very common breathing exercise done in yoga. It is essentially a technique to control your own breath. This can be a great tool to control your mind in situations where you might feel things going out of control. Therefore, yoga can help you relax your mind during stressful situations.

Yoga has also been proven to improve people’s sleep hygiene. The relaxation techniques taught in yoga can really help calm down a racing mind. This can help you to fall asleep on time. Yoga can also help eliminate sleep disorders like sleep apnea.

3. Provides a calm “end” to your workout

Workouts are often rigorous for the muscles, the bones and the heart. After a round of squats, for instance, your muscles produce a lot of lactic acid due to overworking. This can cause sore muscles. Some light yoga poses can help you stretch those sore muscles and stop the lactic acid from accumulating. A lot of running can also put significant strain on your knee joints. Similarly, push-ups can strain your elbow and shoulder joints. Yoga after these workouts can limit the strain on your joints, thus reducing the chances of injury.

Other than this, workouts also increase your heartbeat. A simple breathing exercise can help your blood pressure and heartbeat stabilize.

4. Improves focus

One of the main benefits of yoga is that it increases the blood circulation in your body. The breathing technique taught in Pranayama is perfect to thrust the blood to every part of your body. This increases alertness of the body and improves focus. Asanas like the headstand also improve the blood circulation to the brain and hence, the awareness and concentration levels.

Yoga also involves meditation where a person is taught to focus on the present. This can be a very helpful way to focus on one’s immediate surroundings and not dwell on the past or the future.

5. Cultivates resilience

Yoga requires you to hold a pose for a certain period of time and hold the pose. Ultimately what this teaches you is to control your mind and body and focus on a single task. This can also instill a feeling of resilience into you. A lot of yoga practitioners have been found to be more persevering than non-practitioners.

Disclaimer: This blog provides general information and discussions about health and related subjects. The information and other content provided in this blog, website or in any linked materials are not intended and should not be considered, or used as a substitute for, medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Kindly contact your Doctor before starting a new medicine or health regime.

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Published on March 30, 2022